[SunRescue] Recommend starter Sun?

[User Bobkeys BSD Bob the old greybeard BSD freak]

> I'm new to the list and have been cruising ebay for some classic sun gear.
> I don't have a real production need, but need a unix box at home I can bang
> on (like to run apache, mysql, etc.) -- but mostly for  fun.  I'd like a bit
> of the golden years of Sun!  Like to spend about $100 w/o monitor.

For fun, you can't beat a 4/260 crate, but, that is another thing, entirely.

> Ebay has tons of SS2's with what seems like enough RAM and HDD for what I
> want to do, but maybe an IPX is better?

Actually, the SS2 or IPX are mostly equivalent.  I run a couple IPX's
at home, and they are nice and tiny.  Use the internal drive for a
boot drive, and mount up playspace externally, to suit.  Minimally,
you need a 500mb or 1 gig internal drive, and not much more.  If you
want everything on one drive, it can probably fit comfortably on a
single internal 2 gig drive, unless you are webpagecrazy.

The actual amount of ram you need for a tiny headless box is only 16mb.
More is good, but my 16mb IPX does fine at all the things you want to
apparently do.  I doubt you would really need more than 32M.  The rest
would be fluff, but if it comes along for the ride, fine.
 
> I'm thinking NetBSD would be a great modern OS -- I've worked with FreeBSD
> and have OpenBSD on a laptop, so I can grok the *BSD stuff.

Well, I run all 3 on various PC/MIPS/VAX/Sparc boxes in the office.
I would not recommend NetBSD on a sparc.  I would recommend OpenBSD.
I would not recommend OpenBSD on the MIPS/VAX, but NetBSD instead.
I would recommend FreeBSD as best on the PeeCee hardware.
That is how it breaks down, for me, in actual use, on side-by-side boxes
in my hands, doing about what you are wanting to do.

So, for your Sparc, I would hedge my bet on OpenBSD.

Good Luck, and have fun!

Bob